Minneapolis police investigative reports, left, and an 80-page University of Minnesota report, leaked to KSTP-TV, detail the sexual assault allegations of a 22-year-old student against Gophers football players, as well as the responses of the players. Pioneer Press: Dave Orrick

The woman told investigators she didn’t know how many men had sex with her that night.

It could have been 10, she told them. Or it could have been as many as 20.

It started with a handful of vodka shots. She was at a University of Minnesota football player’s apartment with some friends around 2 a.m. Sept. 2, when she started talking with two players she’d never met before.

They “flirted” and talked about various floor plans in the building. They offered to give her a tour of one of their units on another floor. Sexual contact with both eventually ensued.

A short time later, the woman found herself being penetrated by multiple men, sometimes more than one at the same time. Several of them were Gophers football players, she told investigators. At some point, she said men were lined up outside the bedroom door “chanting, laughing, cheering and jostling for a position in the line to have sex” with her.

When they were finished, condoms and condom wrappers littered the floor.

While the woman’s memory of what happened was spotty, she told investigators she made several statements throughout the interaction stating she wasn’t OK with it, including “I can’t handle this anymore,” “I don’t want this to happen,” and that she did “not want to engage in sexual activity with them.”

The men responded by telling her to be quiet, or saying she had more to do before she could leave. According to what she told investigators, some said nothing and just flipped her into a different position before continuing to have sex with her.

That is a portion of the account the woman at the center of the Gophers suspensions gave university investigators about her interaction with 12 university football players and one recruit now more than three months ago, according to an 80-page report by the University of Minnesota’s Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action that KSTP-TV obtained and posted on its website Friday.

An independent Title IX investigation by the EOAA was conducted after the alleged sexual assault.

Its report served as the basis for the school’s decision to suspend 10 football players this week. It found various players’ actions to be in violation of some sections of the university’s student conduct code, including sexual misconduct, engaging in behavior that is harmful to another person, and violating university rules.

No names are disclosed in the document, which included testimony from interviews conducted with the woman involved, as well as the 12 students accused of assaulting her and 16 others deemed to have “relevant information” about what had happened, the report said.

The accused’s accounts differ from the woman’s, the report found. Many of the men involved said they believed the sexual interaction was consensual.

The school’s decision came more than two months after the Hennepin County Attorney’s office declined to criminally charge the players allegedly involved when the case was first investigated by Minneapolis police. While four players were mentioned at that time in police reports, none of them was arrested.

The school’s suspension announcement prompted the suspended players’ teammates on the Gophers football team to announce Thursday their collective decision to boycott all football activities until “due process” regarding the incident is followed and “the suspensions of all 10 players involved are lifted.”

They said they reached their position after a disappointing meeting with the university’s athletics director about the discipline that included no answers and several “misleading statements.”

The team is angry that the school opted to reprimand the players despite the county attorney office’s decision not to press criminal charges against them.

Responding to the players sentiment Thursday, school leaders said they stood by their decision and that the players didn’t know the full scope of what had happened due to privacy rules that prevented school officials from divulging information.

The EOAA report KSTP obtained Friday is the most comprehensive narrative to date on the night in question.

In addition to interviews with those reported to have been involved, the report based its findings on electronic messages, police investigative materials, footage obtained from the apartment building’s security camera, and videos and photographs taken from inside the building.

On Saturday morning, the Gophers football team announced they will resume all football activities, including participating in the Dec. 27 Holiday Bowl.

HER ACCOUNT

The woman told investigators that she didn’t expect a sexual encounter to take place when she first followed the two men into the second apartment. But her feeling changed once she was led into a bedroom and one of the men shut the door. “Uncomfortable,” she said, she asked to use the bathroom, according to the report. Once inside the bathroom, she told investigators, she felt panic. Eventually, one of the men knocked on the door and said she was taking too long. When she opened the door, she said he was standing between her and the apartment’s front door in a way that made her “feel unable to leave.”

She went back into the bedroom and found one of the men who she later learned was a recruit with his clothes already partially removed. Then both men started to try to unzip her bodysuit, she said. She told investigators she zipped it back up and told them no, but in a “light-hearted manner.” The men told her to “come on,” she said. Feeling “overpowered,” “confused” and “trapped,” and reportedly fearing she had no way out of the situation, she said she eventually took off her clothes.

Sexual interaction followed between the woman and both men, at one point simultaneously. Shortly, more and more men came into the room and began having sex with her, she said. Some grabbed her hair and forced her head toward their genitals. A few of the men were “rough,” she said, and held her shoulders or arms down during the interaction.

To get through it, she said she at times “focused on the ceiling and on the television,” which was off. She said she often felt “confused,” “dazed” and “unaware” of what was happening.

At points, she said she told the men to stop, that it was painful, or that she didn’t want the sexual activity to continue. She said she occasionally tried to push some men off. One time, when several men were watching her have sex with someone, she said she yelled at the onlookers that she “hated” them, the report said.

Her clothes were piled away from her on the floor and she felt afraid to get up and leave with all the men in the apartment, she said.

Throughout much of her retelling, the woman told investigators she was unsure of what had happened and that she couldn’t remember parts or people involved, the report said.

The sexual activity stopped after the last man finished having sex with her, she said. The man suddenly sat up or kneeled on the bed and looked around. Surveying the littering of condoms around the room, she told investigators the man started swearing and saying “oh my God.”

He began cleaning up the condoms while she finally had a chance to get dressed, she said.

At that point, one of the two men who had brought her into the room at the onset came back in. He led her out of the apartment, the report said.

She said he asked her in the hallway if she was OK. Disoriented, she said she kept telling him “I don’t know.” The man also reportedly asked her if she planned to tell anyone about what had happened. She said she told him she wouldn’t.

The woman left the apartment about 4:20 a.m. She had been there since about 3:15 a.m., the report said.

When she left, she said she immediately started crying. “She realized that she had no idea what had happened to her, except that men had had sex with her, she had been violated and she felt physical pain,” the report said.

She told friends about what had happened, saying she thought she might have been raped but wasn’t sure. She eventually drove to a hospital to get an examination by a sexual assault nurse. She didn’t make a copy of the exam’s medical findings available to university investigators.

In the days and weeks that followed, the woman reported the incident to police and gave varying accounts of what had happened. At first she could remember little but over time pieces of her memory came back to her, she said.

WOMAN’S ACCOUNT HAS ‘GAPS,’ BUT U OFFICIALS FIND IT CREDIBLE’

The woman’s account of what happened sometimes included different names. Other times she recanted parts of her testimony or said she’d been mistaken.

She filed a report with the EOAA on Sept. 24, launching the university’s investigation.

Based on its weighing of the evidence, the EOAA concluded that the woman’s testimony was credible. They attributed the gradual return of parts of her memory of the night to her having gone through a “very traumatic experience, rather than to a lack of care or truthfulness,” the report said.

Further, they said portions of her testimony were in many cases corroborated by the narratives given by interviews with the accused students.

They also said her willingness to disclose descriptions of her behavior that did not benefit her sexual assault claim, such as only initially resisting the first two men, bolstered her reliability.

The university’s report did acknowledge that the woman had “significant gaps” in her memory of the events, making it impossible for the EOAA to find policy violations “in some instances.”

It also determined through the woman’s testimony, as well as that of men accused, other witnesses, and video footage captured of portions of the night, that her alcohol intake earlier that evening did not “significantly impair her.”

The investigation also considered the fact that at times the woman’s behavior did not mirror what would be expected from a sexual assault victim, for instance “she did not consistently scream, fight or try to escape,” the report said. Video footage also reportedly shows her at times having “casual conversations with the men” in between sexual encounters.

The report ultimately found that those inconsistencies were understandable given the woman’s “shock, confusion and inability to focus because of the events she was experiencing.”

PLAYERS’ ACCOUNTS VARY, SHOW INCONSISTENCIES, REPORT FINDS

Throughout its investigation, the EOAA uncovered information indicating some of the accused men were trying to impede their efforts, sometimes by deleting relevant text messages or videos and other times by trying to hide the identities of those allegedly involved.

Investigators also found text messages sent between some of the players on a group text discussing sexual interactions that had taken place with the woman.

One of the men reportedly sent a text message to her after it happened saying, “I know that (expletive) was not cool I had to wash all my (expletive) I ain’t even sleep in there last night.”

In most instances, the men allegedly involved corroborated that a gathering had taken place in some of the football players’ apartment at the Radium apartment building Sept. 2 and that the woman had been present.

The majority of the men there were first year players on the football team. Some were in their second year, the report said.

Some reportedly acknowledged to investigators that they had heard that one of their teammates as well as a recruit had a threesome with the woman in the apartment before they’d arrived. Investigators reportedly found text messages sent from one of the players to a group of first year football players bragging about the encounter. They also found a video sent of a portion of the sexual activity.

Many said they also had sex with the woman after the initial threesome concluded and provided detailed descriptions to university investigators of their interactions. They all said they believed their sexual relations with the woman were consensual, the report said. Most said there had been no gathering outside the bedroom door to the sexual activity, though one said he did recall that happening. He reportedly told investigators one player flipped the lights on and off while a group of about eight of them stood in the doorway. He said the men were gathered to talk about who would go “next,” the report said.

The same player told investigators that someone had told him the group was “training her,” a reference that appears to mean multiple men lining up to have sex with someone, the report said.

He also told investigators he remembered a few of the men overhearing her having sex with one man and that “she didn’t seem to like it.” He said he peeked in the door at the time and heard her say, “I don’t want to,” and “this is too many people,” and that “it hurt.” When he told one of the residents of the apartment that things might be getting out of hand, the man, the same one who had initiated the threesome with her, reportedly said “no man, she straight.”

He also said he thought he recalled the woman at one point say “don’t send any more people in.”

Most of the men said they never heard the woman say or do anything to indicate she wasn’t a willing partner in the sexual activity.

One student recalled to investigators that he’d previously matched with the woman on Tinder and that the two talked about that when he entered the bedroom that night. He said he asked if she wanted to have sex and that she said “yes” and asked if he had a condom.

Another player said the woman “seemed happy” while they had sex. Someone else told university investigators that she “looked like she was enjoying it” and said “yes.” Another recalled her “laughing” and “talking” with the men.

A 90-second video of the initial threesome that was reviewed by Minneapolis police was found by officers to indicate that that specific encounter appeared “entirely consensual.”

When asked if the men were concerned if the woman was OK after the evening, one player reportedly said, “we were worried whether she was OK or not or whether she was tripping. Obviously we didn’t want her to overreact. She made it seem like it was OK,” the report said.

Based on the totality of their analysis, university investigators determined that the woman and her alleged perpetrators had “divergent” and “conflicting” reports of what happened.

In a number of instances, they found that the players’ testimony to university investigators differed from what they’d reported to police, the report said. It also said their narratives were often contradicted by accounts given by other players and witnesses.

Given the discrepancies, the report said often that it was impossible to conclude exactly what happened but that given the evidence, the woman’s testimony appeared more credible than that of the players.

The investigation did find that some portions of the players narratives were believable, the report said.

STUDENTS FOUND IN VIOLATION OF SCHOOL’S SEXUAL MISCONDUCT POLICY

The document provides details of investigators’ interviews with the various parties involved. At the end of each interview, the report stipulates how each player’s actions either did or did not violate university policies based on the “preponderance of evidence.”

Four of the 12 men involved were ultimately found to have engaged in sexual conduct with the woman without her consent. In two instances, the report found that the men used force.

The report found that there was insufficient evidence to determine if the sexual activity that took place with the first player during the threesome was consensual.

It also determined that sexual interaction may have taken place between the woman and many of the other men in the apartment that night but that there wasn’t enough evidence to make a finding on it.

Nearly all of the players violated the school’s sexual harassment policy as well as at least three subdivisions of its student code of conduct, the report said. Three were also reprimanded for providing false information to investigators.

Two men allegedly involved were cleared of any violations.

Legal experts have told the Pioneer Press that a Title IX investigation has a lower threshold to determine accountability than police investigations and standards in the state or federal legal system. Instead of having to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt,” a Title IX investigation uses a “preponderance of evidence,” which is supposed to favor the side with more convincing evidence and the probability of its truth and accuracy.

Several hundred people braved the cold to show their support of the victims of sexual assault at the TCF Plaza on Oak Street in Minneapolis on Saturday, Dec. 17, 2016. The demonstration was a reaction to short lived Gopher football team boycott of football activities over a disagreement on 10 players being suspended for participating in an alleged sexual assault on campus. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)

From left, Carly Madden a sophomore at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and University of Minnesota sophomores Clayton Stansberry, Emma Saks, and Trevor Stansberry join several hundred people who braved the cold to show their support of the victims of sexual assault during a rally at TCF Plaza on Oak Street in Minneapolis on Saturday, Dec. 17, 2016. The demonstration was a reaction to a short-lived Gophers football team boycott of team activities after 10 players were suspended for participating in an alleged sexual assault. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)

University of Minnesota seniors Grace Blomgren, left, and Clair Youngquist join several hundred people who braved the cold to show their support of the victims of sexual assault at the TCF Plaza on Oak Street in Minneapolis on Saturday, Dec. 17, 2016. The demonstration was a reaction to short lived Gopher football team boycott of football activities over a disagreement on 10 players being suspended for participating in an alleged sexual assault on campus. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)

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